A Sad Day - A Shameful Day - A Travesty of Justice

As News of Assange's Arrest at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London begins to flood social media and news outlets from around the world, the implications of this shameful event hit like a ton of bricks.

International Law - Tarnished
Political Asylum - Badly Damaged
Journalism - now high-risk profession without legal protections
A publisher will be tortured for speaking truth to power (after already being arbitrarily detained in conditions worse than a prison).

Lenin Moreno released a video statement declaring that Ecuador has revoked the political asylum of Julian Assange for:

"I announce that the discourteous and aggressive behaviour of Julian Assange...has led to the situation where asylum is unsustainable and no longer viable".

and

"the hostile and threatening declarations of its allied organizations against Ecuador and especially, the transgressions of international treaties have led the situation to a point where the asylum of Assange is unsustainable and no longer viable."

Watch Moreno's full statement on RT

It's difficult to stomach what Moreno puts forth in this video because the violations and behavior were provoked under his direction when his administration placed new "conditions" on Assange's asylum five years after being granted political asylum status by the Ecuadorian government in 2012.

This is an absolute outrage and an embarrassing chapter in Ecuador's diplomatic affairs.

The truth is, the US has applied tremendous pressure on the government of Ecuador over the years to have Assange removed from the embassy. Billion dollar IMF loan guarantees certainly played a role in the political back dealing that has ultimately resulted in the expulsion of Wikileaks former editor-in-chief.

Seeing a visibly weakened Assange being dragged out of the embassy like an animal by UK law enforcement agents was a sickening sight.
I don't really have the words to describe it.

Julian cried out:

Resist, the UK must Resist.

As I struggle to articulate the gravity of this moment, I'll post some of the reactions from twitter that are appearing in my feed which express the same deep sadness and outrage that many of us are feeling right now.